


The Cacophony Of Life

by afteriwake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adulthood, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood, Eventual Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, F/M, Growing Up Together, Hate to Love, Kid Molly, Kid Sherlock, Minor Character Death, Mutual Pining, Pining Sherlock, Poor Molly, Poor Sherlock, Relationship(s), Romantic Soulmates, Sherlock Holmes and Drug Use, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Teen Molly, Teen Sherlock, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 10:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5287172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From birth, every person can hear the music that their soul mate hears, whether it’s music that they’re playing, listening to or singing along to, in their mind. Measures can be taken to lessen the sound, but there are times when the sound is too much, too overwhelming. For years, Sherlock Holmes and Molly Hooper use their connection to each other through the music they both hear to communicate: first to annoy each other as children, then to care for each other as teenagers and young adults, and finally to express the longing that hopefully one day, and one day soon, they’ll meet each other face to face and express the love that’s grown between them throughout the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Cacophony Of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elliedilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliedilly/gifts).



> So this is a huge milestone for me. This is my 500th Sherlock fanfic. I am so pleased to have been part of such a wonderful (if sometimes crazy and tempestuous) fandom for that long. I've had this fic sitting around in planning stages for a while and decided it was special enough to make my 500th one. My dear friend **elliedilly** sent me a prompt quite a while ago that said " _Soulmates au, when you meet your soulmate (or from your birth), you can hear any music they’re playing/singing/listening to. This includes awkward performances under the shower…_ " and it just kind of...grew. Along with the fic there are also two fanmixes, one for [Molly](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/133965284688/the-cacophony-of-life-mollys-songs-a-fanmix) and one for [Sherlock](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/133967270203/the-cacophony-of-life-sherlocks-songs-a) where you can listen to the songs (the links take you to the Tumblr posts with the fanmixes). I hope you all enjoy and thank you for making me feel welcome in such a great fandom!
> 
> (Side note, I had to fudge with ages a bit, settling for Sherlock having been born in 1979, which happens to e between the two suggested canon ages.)

  
**January 1985**  
**Sherlock**   
_Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, “Symphony No. 4 in A major, Op. 90 "Italian" - I. Allegro vivace”_   
**Molly**   
_The Chipmunks, “My Sharona”_   


Sleep. He was sleepy. His tummy was full and he wanted to curl up with Redbeard and go to sleep. Sleep would be so nice. Quite lovely.

His thoughts were kind of squished together, all muddled and everything as he yawned and padded his feet towards his room. His mummy had gotten him the bee pyjamas with the footies, his favorite. And his favorite bear was on the bed, Mr. Snugglesworth. He gave his mummy a grin as she tucked him into bed. Normally Father did it but it was quiz night, and he was smart and that was how he showed it. He wanted to be smart too, like Daddy and Mummy and Mikey and Sherrinford. He wanted to learn _everything_.

He waited for his mummy to turn on the music. He knew his Mummy thought he’d like soft, soothing music to go to sleep to but he liked this song the best. This song gave him the best pirate dreams, where he was sailing the high seas with Blackbeard and they were looting all the ships and burying all the treasure.

Once the song started he settled in, waiting for his mum to turn off the bedroom light and then shut his eyes. He was _almost_ asleep when he suddenly heard the most grating sound. His eyes flew open. No, no, _no._ He wanted to _sleep_. Why couldn’t they let him _sleep_?

_Ooh, my little pretty one, my pretty one_  
_When you gonna give me some time, Sharona_  
_Ooh, you make my motor run, my motor run_  
_Got it coming off o' the line, Sharona_

The voices singing the song were high pitched, giving him a headache. They didn’t even sound flas…fals… _real_. He just wanted it to stop, wanted to drown it out. He threw his covers off, padded to the record player, and then turned the volume knob all the way up until Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s symphony drowned out the noise in his head.

He hated the person he was attached to, the person who could hear the music he listened to, the person who played music to annoy him. _Hated_ them. And when they increased the volume of their music, out of meanness, he sank to the floor and sobbed. He hated them. Hated them so much.

Soul mates were stupid.

He didn’t want one. Not ever.

  
**March 1986**  
**Molly**   
_Falco, “Rock Me Amadeus”_   
**Sherlock**   
_Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, “O zittre nicht” (as performed by Lucia Popp in 1969)_   


She was bored. All the stations played all the same music. It was…boring. Boring boring _boring_. She’d rather hoped if she managed to wrest away control from her sister Emily and her brother Colby that there’d magically be something worth listening to.

But at least the stuff on the radio was better than the stuff in her head. Her mum and dad had explained that every person is born with a soul mate, someone destined to be the person they fall madly in love with, and when their soul mate is born they hear all the music they hear. They can hear anything they listen to on the radio, or any music they’re singing, or music they’re playing themselves. 

And she had a _boring_ soul mate who listened to nothing but the dreary classical music that Mrs. Eshaghicn made her listen to when she’d go over while her mum took her dad to the doctor. She didn’t like that music. She liked fun stuff. Stuff she could dance too. Everyone in her house was sad all the time. Mummy tried to make things less sad, and Daddy did too, but they were sad a lot. And she could tell, just like Emily and Colby could. They could see it.

She was four, but she knew _some_ stuff. After all, people said she was a bright young thing.

Finally she found a song she liked. It wasn’t really a bounce around to song. It was an okay song, she guessed. Her brother said it was one of those songs you could learn something about. Some composer of the classical stuff her soul mate liked so much. She rolled over onto her back on the floor and tapped her foot in time with the beat, listening to the man speak the educational stuff in the song.

_1756, Salzburg, January 27, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is born_  
_1761, at the age of five Amadeus begins composing_  
_1773, he writes his first piano concerto_  
_1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart marries Constance Weber_  
_1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart becomes a free mason_  
_1791, Mozart composes "The Magic Flute"_  
_On December 5th of that same year, Mozart dies_  
_1985, Austrian rock singer Falco records_  
_Rock Me Amadeus!_

The song was just about to go back to the more rock part when her soul mate butted in. She reached over for the volume dial, ready to drown him out, when she paused. This song…it wasn’t _so_ bad, she supposed. It was almost pretty. The woman singing had a nice voice. 

And then she realized she’d heard it before. Her daddy had it. Well, maybe not this _exact_ version, but he had this song. She got up off the floor and went to his records. He liked music. Had a huge collection of vinyls from years and years and years. When he felt good, he’d let her sit on his lap and they’d go through and listen to things. Or she’d try with her stupid soul mate trying to blast it out of her head.

Finally she saw the record. She looked at who composed the song the woman was singing. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, it read, and she smiled a little. Maybe there was something to the classical music after all.

Not that she’d admit it to her stupid head soul mate.

  
**May 1987**  
**Sherlock**   
_Antonín Dvořák, “Humoresque No. 7 Opus 101”_   
**Molly**   
_Whitney Houston, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody Who Loves Me”_   


His soul mate had abominable taste in music.

He was trying to get through his lessons, the soothing sounds of “Humoresque No. 7 Opus 101” playing in the background of the kitchen as he worked. Not his actual school lessons, but the private tutor lessons in chemistry that Mummy and Dad had gotten him because it fascinated him. His actual school lessons bored him to tears, to be quite honest. It was all baby stuff. He’d learned that _ages_ ago, it seemed. He wanted to learn the things Mikey was learning but Mummy said he couldn’t just skip grades. Wasn’t right. Wasn’t proper.

But tutors they could do.

Whoever his soul mate was had been listening to the most wretched music for the last two hours and he’d done every exercise he’d learned since the music had played in his head when he was three years old. His mum and dad had done a good job teaching him about it, getting him to understand when he was old enough, and he was thankful he’d had a few years peace as whoever it was who had parented his soul mate had tried to expose them to soothing music the first few years of their life, because listening to what he or she played had been _torture_ ever since he was six. He craved the classical music that was soothing to all his senses. And whoever his soul mate was just wouldn’t oblige.

He _hated_ them. He hoped he never met them. He hoped something grisly happened to them and they just…went away and he’d get blissful silence in his head. It wasn’t a nice thought but then he wasn’t a nice child sometimes. He _tried_ to be, but it didn’t always work.

He was just about to add the last bit to the chemical solution under his tutor’s watchful eye when he heard a sudden clap and it startled him. He spilled the powder mostly on the desk, earning him a shake of the head and a slight clucking sound from his tutor. His jaw set at that. _Damn them,_ he thought to himself as spoken part of the song ended and the sung lyrics to this wretched song started. He’d heard it before, multiple times in the last few days, and yet it still gave him a start.

_Clock strikes upon the hour_  
_And the sun begins to fade_  
_Still enough time to figure out_  
_How to chase my blues away_  
_I've done alright up 'til now_  
_It's the light of day that shows me how_  
_And when the night falls_  
_Loneliness calls_

Oh, what he wouldn’t give to be able to chase his soul mate away, he thought to himself as he went to get more of the powder, feeling the tips of his ears redden under his tutor’s disapproving gaze. Far _far_ away, to somewhere where they never had access to music again.

Then life would be _much_ more pleasant.

  
**November 1988**  
**Molly**   
_Taco, “Puttin’ On The Ritz”_   
**Sherlock**   
_Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, “Hymn to the Sun”_   


She scanned the audience to see if they were there. Her dad hadn’t been feeling well. Mum had said they’d try to make it, try to see her performance, but…well, she knew she shouldn’t count on them being there. Dad was having less good days these days and more bad ones. Mum didn’t talk about it, but she knew. Whatever was wrong wasn’t getting any better. It was probably never going to get any better.

But she couldn’t think about that. Tonight was the charity event, the talent show that St. Margaret’s was putting on, and she had to do her bit whether her Mum and Dad were in the audience or not. She’d been working on the routine for weeks now. She knew it had been hard for her parents to afford the dance lessons along with the tuition for her and her brother and sister’s schooling, but she’d been grateful. She loved dancing, especially tap dancing. She was actually quite good at it, and tonight was her night to shine. She had on a special leotard her teacher had loaned her that looked like a tuxedo, complete with bow tie and tails, and she had a top hat and even a cane. She looked just like she could have come off a Broadway show. 

“You’re next, Molly,” her teacher said. Molly nodded and then waited in the wings, giving another glance out at the audience. She still couldn’t see her family, but then she couldn’t see all the audience, and the lights were in her eyes. Maybe they were there after all. She’d do them proud. She’d show them the lessons were worth it, show them just how good she was.

Finally it was her turn. She made her way to the center of the stage, her heels clacking on the hard surface. She got in her position and then the music started. She’d picked the long version of the song for her routine, knowing full well she could pull off a nearly five minute long performance. She started to do her routine and it kicked into high gear when the lyrics started.

_If you're blue and you don't know_  
_Where to go to, why don't you go_  
_Where fashion sits_  
_Puttin' on the Ritz_  
_Different types who wear a day coat_  
_Pants with stripes and cutaway coat_  
_Perfect fits_  
_Puttin' on the Ritz_

And then it happened, the moment she’d been dreading. She heard something in her head. _Oh no,_ she thought. _Not now._ Her soul mate had taken to trying to throw her attention by playing very loud music while she was going through her routine. And sometimes it worked. She tried every trick her parents had taught her to block the music in her head, but something was different. Her soul mate wasn’t listening to it on a record player or a radio. It sounded amplified, as if they were in an auditorium, but also quite close. And then it hit her.

_They were actually playing it themselves._

She stood still for a moment in disbelief, forgetting she was in the middle of performing her routine. Thankfully she snapped out of it quickly and she felt she hadn’t made too much of a noticeable mistake. But…this was strange. She hadn’t realized her soul mate could actually _play_ an instrument. How many times had she heard him before without realizing he was playing the song himself? How had she not noticed before?

She finished up her routine and then scurried backstage. Here she was, all proud of her dancing ability, and her soul mate was a bloody violin prodigy. Wonderful. She sat on a box backstage and caved in on herself. Maybe she just wasn’t talented enough after all.

  
**December 1989**  
**Sherlock**   
_Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”_   
**Molly**   
_New Kids On The Block, “Hangin’ Tough”_   


One of the few things all five members of his family could agree on was the family tradition of watching a ballet performance of The Nutcracker around the holidays. It seemed there was so much more bickering these days, between Mycroft and Sherrinford, between Sherrinford and his parents…he tended to stay out of the family drama but he had the feeling that eventually it would all either explode and be a gigantic mess or implode and leave a hole in the family.

Either way, he wasn’t looking forward to the situation.

He was on the floor with Redbeard waiting for them to leave while his brothers occupied the chairs and sofa around the telly. His soul mate had been surprisingly quiet as he had listened to the music on his battered cassette player, headphones clamped firmly on his ears, so he didn’t have to listen to everyone’s snarling at each other. While this event only happened once a year he listened to the music from it as often as he could. He supposed he’d have to stop soon; he was ten now, and it was time to give up childish pursuits such as a love of ballet. He’d had to start to develop a tough exterior, a thick hide to keep the bullies at school at bay. A “stiff upper lip,” as Mikey called it. And there was the fact he had developed an interest in things of a criminal nature. Not _causing_ crimes, but _solving_ them. There was a suspicious death at a pool in London that intrigued him greatly but he’d be damned if he could get the authorities to pay attention to him and his theories.

But at least for right now, he wanted to concentrate on the music. For one more year he had the excuse of family tradition to enjoy the ballet and the music. Next year…who knew what the next year would bring? For all he knew, his family structure would no longer be the same. 

The bit he enjoyed the most, “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” started, and he relaxed into Redbeard, resting his head on the dog’s soft fur. He was getting old, he knew that. He hadn’t been a young pup when his parents had gotten him, and he moved more slowly now. Still, they had time together. That was what mattered.

Suddenly there was a jarring sound in his head and he shut his eyes. Of _course_ she would have to start listening to some incessant pop dribble now, he thought, clenching his teeth. He’d surmised his soul mate was a female nearly a year ago, when the music she tended to listen to skewed towards male groups with supposedly handsome male singers. He began to use the techniques to temper down the music in his head to duller levels, not wanting to listen to this particularly odious song again. She’d listened to it nineteen times so far this week and it was only Monday evening.

_Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh_  
_Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh_

_Listen up everybody if you wanna take a chance_  
_Just get on the floor and do the New Kids' dance_  
_Don't worry 'bout nothing 'cause it won't take long_  
_We're gonna put you in a trance with a funky song, 'cause you gotta be_

_Hangin' tough_  
_Hangin' tough_  
_Hangin' tough_  
_We're rough_

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If the members of this…this… _boy band_ were what she fantasized about than he had no idea why they were soul mates. He’d never be caught dead being like any of them. Never in a million years. And if she liked inelegant fops like that?

Then he didn’t ever want to meet her.

Once he got it down to a manageable level, a dull murmur in his head, he turned back to his tape player and turned up the volume for good measure. It would be best to ignore her, he supposed. They weren’t right for each other, not matter what their stupid biology had predetermined. Simply not right for each other. One day they’d both realize that.

Mark his words.


End file.
